MINI SE Undercarriage

I am not a mechanic, but my best guess is maybe wire for regenerative brakes? Munro might get into that in next video

 

Yeah, I went back and looked at underbody photos of the SE and those wires aren't visible under the car. Sandy should send that 10-year employee/first-time-on-video explainer to stand in the corner after not disclosing the exposure of those wires.

 

the new Mazda Mx-30 is similar in range as mini. I can actually see demand building for mini SE as it becomes more widely available. The biggest negative in my opinion is the inability to take it for a test drive and the holdups with the chip shortage.

 

The MX-30 will have (for California customers only) 143-hp, a 100-mile range, and almost certainly more mass than the SE, so not a competitor. Better for carting the kids to soccer, but not for cranking hard down the back roads and quickly lapping roundabouts.

 

Ugh hate now that he's a Tesla fanboi and honestly his lack of understanding sometimes is making me wonder... he opened the trunk and I stopped. Sorry. He's lost me.

 

I'm happy to have the lower boot-floor position so grocery bags can stand up under the privacy cover. It's surprising he didn't recognize the benefit of having that minimum vertical space.

Does Sandy realize the SE is made on the same assembly line as the gas-powered cars? I believe that reality explains what he saw under the bonnet. Perhaps he believes the SE is made in a different factory. Couldn't the minion look up that CATL, not Samsung, is the battery manufacturer?

Why wasn't the fact that despite its steel body the SE is nearly as light as the i3 mentioned? Why wasn't the fact that this upscale car the least-expensive EV in the US mentioned? That explains the SE's lack of the carbon-fiber bodywork and aluminum frame Sandy loves so much in the big-buck i3.

I'm glad that Sandy liked the "British" interior. At last weekend's Drive Electric Event near Detroit, the owners of many EVs admired the number of switches and knobs in my SE.

If the minion had reported the SE's true 0-60 time, Sandy wouldn't have lumped it into the also-ran category, although he did say "this is more like a sports car than the ID.4" before being told the wrong 0-60 time by the clueless minion. Sandy should have taken a drive around the block. I think it would have made a significant difference in his opinions.

I'm so glad Sandy Munroe single-handedly made the 2002 MINI Cooper successful--otherwise I wouldn't be driving my wonderful MINI Cooper SE now! It's too bad he was too busy remodeling his house to take a closer look at this great car. I wish I could have been there to help out his minion.

 

He lost me after the ID.4 videos. The obsession with frunks makes little sense when you can repurpose that space into the passenger compartment. ID.4 is a fantastic car for what it is, a comfortable people mover. I've had multiple test drives of the Model Y and the ID.4 and the Y (despite being extremely fun), was so uncomfortable for a modern car. The ID.4 is also $24k cheaper in my state when factoring in incentives. None of that comes through in the videos. It's all "Tesla good, others bad" which sucks because I really like Tesla otherwise.

We wouldn't have EV selection without Tesla, but on the other hand there are some great non-Tesla options that he goes out of his way to trash.

 

A friend test-drove an ID.4 the other day and he said it was okay, but hated the "touch sensitive controls with haptics." Said there are only 2-3 "real" buttons.

He's in the market for a crossover SUV-style vehicle, but I kindly offered him a test drive in my SE as a "baseline" since he's just starting to look at EVs.

 

Oops that shouldn't have been trunk, but frunk (stupid autocorrect, should've called it the bonnet). Laughing at it was seriously too much even for me.

We're slowly looking for our other car to be replaced with Electric so I'm definitely into what all else is out there. I don't like frunks myself. I have my eye on the ID4 and the Mach-E at the moment. I appreciate Tesla for bringing electric to the US. I just don't like them...

 

I'm not a follower of Sandy, but thought I would check this video out when it popped up in my Youtube suggestions earlier today. I watched as far as I could but stopped as soon as I realized it was basically "old white man has opinions based upon assumptions". Sometimes the co-host would point something out to help Sandy revise his opinion, but it was ultimately an opinion.

In my experience as an engineering-type, another engineer's opinion about a solution is meaningless unless they understand the problem being solved. It was obvious that Sandy didn't understand the objectives and constraints BMW/MINI were operating under (and didn't have the time/interest to learn about them), so his conclusions were flawed by default. Not worth getting worked up about.

 

The covers protecting the cables WERE removed prior to filming the video. You may want to check out this alternate YouTube video: . The cables' installation/routing/zip ties are a non-issue since they are fully protected by a cover. This indicates the reviewers in the Munro video have an agenda to slam the SE unfairly. Disappointing.

 

I too test-drove an ID.4 recently and thought the car itself was okay. But a big thing that I remembered is that the efficiency seemed low (maybe 2.8 - 3.3 mi/kWh) even for a bigger and heavier car. My SE routinely gets an average of 4.6 mi/kWh +/- 10% depending on the driving mode and how heavy my foot feels. But still way better than the ID.4.

One commenter on this forum stated that it is easy for car buyers to confuse needs vs. specs. I don't really NEED a bigger car or longer range at this point in life, so why pay more - either for the car itself or for energy to operate it every day? Besides, there's always the fun factor, which I do want, maybe need!

 

EVs have no vibration like ICE vehicles do. The suspension should keep things pretty still in the undercarriage.

 

It is frustrating to watch videos like that when there is snap judgment without understanding the design decisions (manufacturing on an ICE line...keeping the weight down to drive like a Mini...the target market being city dwellers or a those needing a second car in a household).

 

Another thing is this car is really dang cheap (for a Mini). All of the incentives bring the price below the gas Mini (non S model), and with better standard equipment.

It costs me about $3.50 to fill up and go around 130-ish real world miles. No oil changes, likely no brake work, minimal maintenance.

I have some complaints like I would with any car I have owned, but it’s generally hard to fault the SE outside of road trip ability. To be honest, I have no interest in taking any Mini long distances anyway. From a consumer perspective, the SE is just about the most perfect car I have ever owned.